I didn't know of Edwin Denby. But the poem makes me think of those unique people who come into the world, perhaps even unappreciated, and then slip away; the ripples left behind in their departing stir us more than their presence. And we are left to lament. Throughout our lives, I think this happens too many times.

Yes, it's curious how someone with an understated presence often leaves more of a mark in our memory than those who try too hard and are yet all too easily forgotten.

By "angels", of course, what Edwin meant was simply: lovely, instinctively graceful, unselfconscious young people, walking in the streets, going about their lives. That flowing dance which is life, let us say. By "terrify" I think what Edwin meant (to put it more prosaically) was "amaze, astonish, inspire awe."

Making the the angels/dancers into hummingbirds was strictly a matter of my exercising that copious sense of permission known as poetic license; which could not have been possible without the wondrous images of this great photographer. Capturing and freezing a moment of intense motion in a frame and handing it over to us may have to do with things like shutter speeds and lenses but to me it's something more than that, I can't really think of a better word for it than genius.

This is very beautiful, you. Yes, I am thinking in an understated way that you have with words and your relationship together.

'in the phantom motion of a curtain stirred by no breeze --' My absolute fav of the whole. Seems to sum up/cement your words together. I am thinking the main ingredient in cooking! Although using cement in cooking is actually not recommended for baking to eat!

Love that poem, also your comments on Denby. When I go to NYC I try to see the city through his eyes (and of course Frank's). Often I succeed--the power of poetry! So what if I just missed my subway stop, it's 100 (or minus 100) degrees, and I'm about to get mugged--I'm living in a Denby sonnet!

I first knew of Edwin Denby through his writings about dance, when I was a young dancer of few natural gifts, curious about what made someone great, not often able to see them in performance myself. Tucked inside a new box of shoes, a cross between a holy card and a baseball card featuring Suzanne Farrell included an excerpt by Denby that sent me to the source. Beyond the usual literal description, Denby conveyed a dancer or choreographer's essential qualities, the sensation of witnessing the underlying spirit of their presence played out in time and movement. Many years later, I learned that to better "lift [and hold] oneself away from leaden gravity," one had to simultaneously connect with its deep pull. To me, Denby's poems are like that, tensile, poised, ready. Thanks for capturing that and reminding me.

He was born in 1903 in China, the grandson of a US Ambassador to China; lived in Europe as a young man, became a dance critic in New York City in the 1930s. His great works of dance criticism are Looking at the Dance (1949) and Dancers, Buildings and People in the Streets (1965). These works are concerned not only with the dance but with human movement and urban life. His poetry, mainly in a compressed adaptation of the Shakespearean sonnet form, quietly influenced much of the poetry of younger New York School poets over the years. His master work in verse was In Public, In Private (1964).

"He sees and hears more clearly than anyone else I have ever known," the poet Frank O'Hara said of him.

Edwin was a wonderfully civilized and sweet person. His poems have a particular radiance, they are full of illuminations.

In his later years he often carried with him a copy of the Divine Comedy, always one of the final two volumes, the Purgatorio or the Paradiso, never the Inferno.

"New York is pure paradise," he told me in that 1968 letter I quote in the poem, "though the angels two or three feet away terrify."

Yes, Owen, one could do worse than wear a protective Edwin halo on the NYC subway.

Annie, "the underlying spirit of their presence played out in time and movement... tensile, poised, ready": these phrases beautifully capture what is so wonderful about Edwin's writings.

Elmo, I think there is a little bit of Edwin's perception in each of us who attended upon his work.

SarahA, thank you for the kind words. Thanks muchly also for the baking tip. Now I understand why my biscuits always turn out so... crunchy.

Tom, your hummingbird-delicate poem reminds me of car-free, carefree days I loped about town with notebook in coat and tabula rasa in head. Sometimes the sublime terror aroused by the jamais vu beauty of passersby--youths like Rilkean angels moving dancingly and disdainfully--opened the floodgates of my word-cache, and I betook myself to a coffee shop to scrawl the thoughts inundating me. Paradise!

yeah, ubi oh ubi, he said, mawkishly blubbering on his Laura Nyro LP... I've been in an elegiac mood of late. But maybe I don't want to know; maybe they've molted their neigey plumage. Maybe I'll just let them cavort in the aviary of my memory.

Dear Tom,In addition to the hummingbirds andthe excellent lyric....The PennSound recordings and the Jacketcontent, in particular Anne Waldman's interview are like a lostmap to hidden treasure. I just bought an Edwin Denby book onAmazon for 45 cents plus shipping.See what I mean about hiddentreasure...the poets isolated bytheir knowledge Yvor Winters didsay...the daughter of the radiologist who read my x-rays formany years was a long time dancepartner of Baryshnikov...he had at onetime 3 children in the New YorkCity Ballet, from Hope, Arkansas...That's almost as good as a President from the same place...unlikely spot for hidden treasure